. . . Saturday editorial page's odds 'n' ends column, operates as a relief valve of sorts. Pressure builds all week as the opinionators try -- and they are trying -- to dampen the snottiness that has marked their work of recent years. But on Saturdays, the adult leaves the room and the staff's inner jerk lunges for the keyboard, producing, for instance, this:
In an interview with our editorial board this winter, George P. Bush demonstrated why he was a chip off the old block, displaying his granddad's [that would be G.H.W. Bush's] mastery of the topics and his dad's [that would be Jeb Bush's] deep intellect and gentle temperament. What arched our eyebrows this week was a news release that suggested he had inherited a worrisome trait from Uncle 43 [G.W. Bush]. Blasting President Obama, P led off with a dangling participle that makes his message something that could be mis-underestimated. His staff needs to do better. (Editorial, "Ups and downs: Summer reading, a battle of the marching bands and the debut of TDECU stadium," Houston Chronicle, August 30, 2014)
A dangling participle! Say it ain't so!
This from the same newspaper that reported on the same day that "earlier this summer . . . the number of unaccompanied minors turning themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol reached what President Barack Obama called an 'urgent humanitarian crisis.'" (Mark Stevenson, "Mexico thwarting child, family migrants," Houston Chronicle, August 30, 2014 (emphasis added))
A unaccompanied minor who can turn himself into the U.S. Border Patrol should hire an agent and turn himself in to "America's Got Talent."
Go to page 436 of Garner's Modern American Usage for a learned essay on "in" and "into," which "aren't ordinarily interchangeable." Certainly not here.
Back to the topic: On pages 217-219, Mr. Garner explains the many species of "danglers." He properly disapproves of most, but he is far kinder -- one might say less judgmental -- to grammatical miscreants than is the Chronicle's pompously sarcastic editorial board. Often enough, Mr. Garner points out, the intended meaning is clear.
Notice what's missing in this simulacrum of an editorial. The editors violate their elementary obligation to quote the sentence they mock, so readers can share the merriment.
I suspect the omission was intentional. Here's why:
One cannot know with certainty, but on the available evidence I believe the press release in question is this one: "Statement by George P. Bush on President Obama's EPA effort to circumvent Congress and wage war on Texas energy jobs," August 29, 2014. Furthermore, the press release may have been sanitized since it was posted.
Subject to these two caveats, here's the real joke: You will search it in vain for a dangling participle -- leading off (as the Chronicle claims), at the bottom, or anywhere in between.
If I have correctly identified the offending press release and if it has not been scrubbed since it was posted, then we may conclude that the Houston Chronicle editorial board, as is so often the case, knows not of what it speaks. Mock-prudish scorn of a nonexistent dangling participle is stupid and indecent, inviting mockery in return. And picking on a rookie Republican is a misuse of precious ink in the target-rich environment of the One Who Must Not Be Mocked, Sheila Jackson Lee.
Young Mr. Bush's press release, like so much political puffery, is windy indeed. But no reasonable reader is likely to misunderstand what he is saying.
But it's impossible to misunderestimate the Chronicle's editorial board. Behind the ever-arched eyebrows, we find ignorance of the topic, precious little intellect, and zero gentleness.
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